Feel free to approach “Get Out” any way you want: as a bloody horror movie, a hip comedy or a movie about race.
From any angle, this film is terrific.
“Get Out” is the first feature directed by Jordan Peele, one half of the “Key and Peele” sketch-comedy show. He wrote the screenplay, too, and like a good comedy sketch the film feels rooted in something real, but exaggerates to make a point.
We begin in New York City, where Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) asks his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams, from “Girls”) one question about their upcoming weekend visit to her parents’ house. Do they, ah, realize he’s black?
The couple has been dating for four months, and she hasn’t mentioned it to the folks. But hey, they’re totally cool — just goofy and awkward in the way parents always are.
When they get to the isolated house, Rose’s mom and dad (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford) are indeed nice, welcoming people. And yet things seem a little… strange.
Peele must have studied the slow-burn horror film, and the way a director like Roman Polanski (or M. Night Shyamalan, for that matter) can unnerve you with the simplest little touches.
Why do the two servants at the estate — both African-American — have a habit of staring? Why does Rose’s mom stir her tea in such an obsessive way? And at the family’s lily-white afternoon garden party, why is there a black guy (the unnervingly good Keith Stanfield, from “Straight Outta Compton”) acting kinda white?
We’ll say no more about where all this goes, except that after the subtle build-up, Peele unleashes a good old horror-fest at the end. This movie is best seen without knowing anything at all (please don’t watch the trailer, which gives far too much away).
Amazingly, “Get Out” uses the trappings of the horror genre as a way of poking into uncomfortable subjects surrounding race in 2017. The film’s crazy hyperbole is a method of exploring anxieties, both black and white, about race.
As a first-time director, Peele has a strong hand. The movie is hilarious when it needs to be, especially when Chris’s pal (LilRel Howery) is on the phone trying to figure out what’s going on.
Peele gets precise performances, even from people in small roles: Betty Gabriel and Marcus Henderson are spectacularly dead-on as the two family servants, and Stephen Root does his creepy thing as a blind friend of the family.
This film is a true original. In a world of safe movies, “Get Out” is something wild.
“Get Out” (4 stars)
A truly original horror-comedy from writer-director Jordan Peele, about the creepiness that ensues when a black guy (Daniel Kaluuya) goes to an isolated mansion to meet the parents of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). In its wild, exaggerated way, this terrific film pokes into anxieties, both black and white, about race in 2017.
Rating: R, for violence, language
Showing: Alderwood, Alderwood Mall, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Meridian, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Thornton Place Stadium, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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